Volume 36, Number 15 · October 12, 1989
How to Kill Arms Control
By Lord Zuckerman
The deliberations of arms control negotiators are usually made to appear so esoteric that as talks drag on, public interest in what is happening, or assumed to be happening, is apt to lag, and then die. That certainly happened to the so-called Mutual Balanced Force Reduction (MBFR) talks that were quietly and formally ended this year. The new Vienna negotiations on conventional forces that have begun their second session are unlikely to share that fate. In May President Bush set a year's deadline for agreement. If it seems by next May that an agreement is still far off, there is bound to be widespread public concern. Too much political capital has been committed, too much has been promised, not only by the President but also by Mr. Gorbachev and Chancellor Kohl, for it to be otherwise.
Feature, 4946 words
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